crazy quilting

I am not really very good at crazy quilting and I don’t enjoy it very much. Shhhhh…don’t tell anyone. It is not that I don’t like it, I admire other peoples work very much and I do like stitcheries with stem and back stitches… I just get paralyzed with so much choice and kinda can’t do ribbon embroidery very well. Saying that, I am happy enough with my final blocks for a Crazy Quilt Round Robin that I did with a group of talented quilters and CQers in England and Sweden! I don’t think I will be doing much Crazy Quilting in the future, it is just not a passion, and I don’t think I’m very good at it! I will post a photo of my quilt when it comes back soon though.

I also suck at doing a proper quilting stitch. Barbara showed me her technique and made it look so easy to get even stitches on the front and back of her quilt. She can quilt amazingly fast. Now looking around I am paralyzed again by the amount of techniques for hand quilting. I am doing well just stab stitching each quilting stitch one at a time for my Dear Jane, probably best for that anyway, as there are so many seams! I’ll put in my latest blocks here, just click to see the details! What are your favorite methods to hand quilt? Can you recommend a good book? I’d love to learn a method where I can go a bit more quickly, though I suppose having done 60 blocks since late June isn’t too bad! I am aiming to get one done each day and sometimes get a few more…

I am working on the heel gusset for my Pomatomus sock and while chatting with my friend Kathleen while doing a bit of knitting while kids ran wild over the house I managed to totally mess up the decreases. That will show me! No more talking and knitting on a complicated pattern, lol!! I spent last night ripping back to a place I could start again. A few days ago, Kathleen watched the girls for me and I snuck out to the quilt shop to see if I could find some fabric for the snowy mountains on my dad’s quilt, and pick up the Jo Morton and Rothermel prints she had on clearance!! There were roadworks that had me sitting on the road for about 20 minutes. Instead of seething, I remembered I had my sock knitting with me and took it out and got a few rows done while waiting to move again! I should remember to keep it in my bag just in case I have a minute or 2 of found time 🙂 Gotta grab it while you can with 2 small kids!!

I’ll leave you with this photo of Aisling who decided she needed a hat, mittens and tea towel bib to eat her spaghetti…gotta love them wacky kids!

I’ve been making slow progress these days, but I have finished Barbara’s Crazy Quilt round robin block I had been working on…it has been posted off to the next recipient a day before the deadline, yeah!

I also started working on the Dear Jane blocks I want to hand quilt for my pay it forward swap. If they aren’t done in time to be Christmas decorations, I figure they will make cute valentine ones, lol. The blue block is for Barbara’s Dear Jane, I promised one a while back as a thank you for all the help she’s given me since we met!

I’ve also started on a few ocean waves blocks for my scrappy ocean waves bed quilt. I will make this for our bed I think! I have a feeling my Dear Jane won’t be on the bed for a while, lol, as hand quilting won’t be speedy here with this newbie! I am using all my reproduction scraps and like the look so far.

We are really looking forward to our trip out to Oregon in a few weeks. Anyone in the Portland or Bend areas want to meet up? I am hoping to see Patti and Cher while I’m there (How is Saturday the 16th for you guys? I will be jetlagged, but that won’t keep me from some quilt shops!). My parents have retired to a new house in Bend, out in the mountains, so we plan to stay in Portland at the start and end of the trip to keep mountain pass driving to a minimum…

I am starting to think about 2007 goals… I think 2 bed quilts for my own house, many wall hangings, and a focus on quilting for our family again. I still only have one of my own quilts in the house and it is in bits, fallen apart from abuse (my first quilt). I love giving quilts to friends, but they appreciate any thoughtful gift, and I want to quilt for my girls this year as well…and sew some clothes for them…make some dolls maybe… So maybe 2007 will be year of the family for sewing and knitting projects…hmmmm

This lovely patch is done by Barbara as part of a round robin we are doing. I am learning as I go about beading and silk ribbon embroidery. Spider webs and spiders are good luck images in crazy quilts, so lots of good luck for Barbara!! It is my first time beading and doing the silk flowers, but I am fairly happy with how they turned out. I will be putting a celtic knot motif in the white patch and doing a few more seam treatments before I call this one done. It is funny, I couldn’t get into my crazy quilt class online, I just couldn’t find the time, but since I can go crazy on this and not have to do things in a certain order, it was more “fun” to work on!! I plan to try to keep the spider and celtic knot motifs in each round robin I do, as a signature, if someone else hasn’t done it before me.

Today is my patchwork group meeting. I will probably work on cutting out more reproduction fabrics for an apple core charm quilt I want to do, and a scrappy ocean waves quilt. Or I might bring my CQ work…hmmmm…

There is no Thanksgiving here tomorrow, but some of my American friends are hosting a Thanksgiving on Sunday. I am making American biscuits (biscuits here are cookies!) and we got together to make a few pies earlier (pecan, yummm!!! and pumpkin!!).